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This poem was written based on Walt Whitman's " Song of Myself," as an assignment in my AP English class after we read his work. I incorporated the same themes of nature, unity, and the representation of all people using my own style.

Inspired by Walt Whitman's Song of Myself

“ Song Of Myself”

I.

We share the universe, you and I.

It is ours.

When the morning presses its sweet breath against the bare-chested earth We hold the sun in our callused palms.

I am the rays of sunshine that pour through your window Like water from an overturned glass; you are the vivid hues of the aurora That paint the fresh-faced sky.

And every celestial body that has ever been Touched by an errant star in the December sky Every tuft of verdant grass that has sprouted from the Raw soil of the saint’s bones Is ours.

II. The realist with the horn-rimmed spectacles Will tell me that this rose is fleeting. That its scent, its petals Its rough thorny stem Will wither And sink into the silt of English gardens.

I choose not to hear such sentiments.

For I know that the this rose Is every rose there has ever been Every rose there will ever be.

Its fragrance that imbues me Encompasses the innonce of childhood, The wanderlust of the living and the finality of death.

My lungs are filled with the essence of the atmosphere The ethos of a civilization, Conducting the rhythmic palpations of my heart The harmonious release and intake of breaths.

This is the song, The cadence of the languor of life. The song to which we utter our first indignant cries And the song whose chords rest on white lips.

It is the rain on your windowpane The laugh of your husband The sorrow of loss And the ecstacy of love.

III.

I have lived most of my life In a nation gone awry.

I remember the day it started As perfectly as I remember my name.

Since a certain September morning It all just seemed to fall apart, Like grains of sand slipping through The cracks between your fingers.

They all thought that war was the answer. They said it was for freedom But really, wasn’t it just The crude reality of human greed?

For years Revenge is what ran through the veins of the people Until they realized What they had become.

The one they had once praised Became a palpable reminder Of the growing monster Known as “ America.”

And then, He came , The massiah-like man The gold-hearted savior; The face of change.

He instilled hope into the hearts and minds Of lamenting citizens Speaking with conviction and earnestness Telling us that Change is possible.

I am speaking of course, Of the future; Barack Obama.

IV.

On any given Sunday morning you will see them on the side of the road With worn clothing and weathered hands Dirt caked under their fingernails Humming the song of the lost American Dream.

They dreamt of opportunity, they traveled over mountains And rivers, some oceans. They yearn for the solace of the homeland The scent of sugarcane and the lenitive language Of their childhoods.

They are the hands that toil The sweat and broken promises They are the nameless dead, The melanin of the nation’s skin.

Every day they are spurned Returning home with empty pockets And perishing spirits.

And yet They rise the next morning Only seeing the resplendence of light And an iota of hope.

V.

It’s a city with a thousand faces.

I once saw a mother in a fur coat And pearls whiter than her boy’s teeth.

She was preoccupied with The voice on the other end of her telephone Only occasionally eyeing a wan boy Who the held the hand of a dark woman with cornrows.

He ran up to his mother, grasping her bejeweled hand Which she promptly pulled away.

It was one of those pitiful moments Where the exact second A paper-thin heart tears Is louder than a thousand drums.

Downtown is a different world. Life is slower , it trickles like thick honey. Life is a winged enigma, They attempt to capture it in its earthly forms, Behind the lens of a camera or the Nib of a pen The strum of a guitar Or the strokes of a brush.

The waifish girl With the chestnut hair Angled over her forehead in an artful yet careless angle.

Her dress is simple, black and grey. She sits in the park, Knowing she owes the world nothing.

She doesn’t own much, Her favorite possession is a tattered Marble notebook, Staining her hands with ink, The liquid of her subconscious.

She can’t remember her social security number But she will forever remember the way The leaves look today, The gold and red And the perfect way the sun streams Through them, Creating an effulgent burst of splendor.

In Harlem they are singing to Jesus Powerful robust voices wafting through the air Setting souls on fire and making grandmothers Dance again.

Times Square paradox of garish atrocity and neon beauty; Fulfilling the images of drawling visitors and star-eyed thespians.

They are the quintessence The ardor, the disdain, the Beautiful and hideous face That is New York.

VI.

Who am I?

I am the salt of your tears The brine of the ocean The dust on a butterfly’s wing

I am the voice of unwritten songs and forgotten reveries I forget no one, for I am everyone.

The unrecorded deaths The wayfaring children The unrequited lovers The wristcutters The painted women The battered mothers The stillborn children And the ones who die with untold stories sifting in their brains.

They sink into the netherworld of wraiths Of the ghostly laughs of grown children

Yet they are the fabric of the nation The fiber of spiderwebs And they are a part of me.

I am a girl A girl with an Irish name and Spanish skin Who thinks every day is a poem And weaves words together Until they make some sense.

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